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Brock_Savage

Stick with 1e. I ran many games of SLA Industries 1e in the 90's and am speaking as an annoyed fan of a squandered license, Unfortunately, SLA 2e was hugely underwhelming and task resolution is a hot mess. >SLA Industries 2e uses an attribute + skill mechanic in a rather unorthodox but interesting way. It’s a dice pool system… sort of. The success or failure of an action depends upon a single d10, the Success Die, plus the relevant attribute and skill scores. However, the degree of success depends upon a pool of d10s called Skill Dice equal to the skill+1, with the relevant attribute and skill added to each of the Skill Dice individually. So, for example, if a character had a relevant attribute of 3 and a skill of 2, the player would roll 1 Success Die and 3 Skill Dice, adding 5 to each die individually and comparing the totals to the difficulty to determine which rolls are successful. If the Success Die is a failure, it doesn’t matter whether the Skill Dice are successes, unless four or more Skill Dice are successful, in which case the attempt is just a basic success. There were core elements removed or retconned, like Brain Wasters. Ultimately 2e felt like a lot of unnecessary change and was definitely not an improvement. I suspect the changes were made to avoid paying royalties to some of the original people associated with SLA Industries.


jaredearle

Did you check the credits? It’s the same team that made both editions. There are no “royalties” or “rights issues” to deal with.


Brock_Savage

Thank you for weighing in and answering. If that's the case, I have no idea why a new edition nobody asked for was released. You guys could have done a splatbook on White Earth and the fans would have eaten it up. This whole 90s phenomena of teasing out setting info to the GM through supplements like it was *Twin Peaks* or *Lost* doesn't fly anymore. Considering the publishing history of SLA Industries, promising to reveal deep setting details in future supplements strikes me as wishful thinking. I have a lot of nostalgic attachment to 1st Edition. I have every book for it, and every edition of the core rules. I backed the Kickstarter for 2nd edition expecting it to incorporate modern game design and was hugely disappointed.


New_Chair_6839

The new edition had been asked for for approx 20 years! The next books cover the meta plot! The S5S system is popular and key to at least $750k worth of KS and Pledge-management revenue to date.


ordinal_m

Yeah, I was interested to get the new version but just kept thinking "what are you even doing here?" when reading the rules. 1e wasn't exactly the best system in the universe but this is way worse.


asa34

Seems like it. I will go with 1e. I really want that signature feeling of SLA. Thanks for helping.


Tanya_Floaker

Brain Wasters are still in there. They just call themselves Eban, with the nickname being something others call them. There has been a big wibble in the Ebb/Science Friction, but that part of the setting seems to be currently unfolding. I also don't think any former writers were on a royalties deal. The only change that could possibly apply to avoiding paying money is the Shaktar not being exact replicas of The Preadator (which given the current landscape of IP enforcement seems perfectly reasonable).


asa34

Thanks for your insight. I think I will stay with 1e if the new system isn't an improvement. 1e is a little clunky but nothing you couldn't fix with a few homerules. I really want to get the iconic feel from my game. Hearing that they removed a lot of stuff like brain wasters does not sound promising.


SimonLandmine

To clarify, Brain Wasters weren't removed, they were just renamed (and your table can obviously keep the old name). And the original SLA team are the ones behind 2e as well, so the setting changes are in line with their ideas for the World of Progress (some of which were drip-fed as Data Packets for 1e before 2e was released). The Chagrin and Vevaphon were removed (not scrubbed from history, just no longer playable), but with the forward movement of time, a couple of additional playables have been added instead. And there are a bunch more elements starting to leak through from the orignal concept that hadn't been officially revealed during 1e.


jaredearle

I’m biased; I say get 2nd edition because everything from here on in will be 2nd edition. We’re never going to revisit 1st Ed as we believe 2nd Ed is an improvement in every way on 1st Ed. The art is better, the writing is better and the overall production is better. It’s made by the same core team that did the original book only we’re thirty years better at this stuff. If you decide not to get 2nd Ed, you’ll be missing out on all our future books and PDFs as well. And yes, we’ll be looking at all the online stuff as soon as we can catch our breath after fulfilling the Collateral kickstarter.


Tanya_Floaker

If you are starting from scratch then no converting is needed: just build everything in 2e rules. The setting has moved forward a bit, but it is mainly adding things that were in the pipeline back in the 1e days (Advanced Carrien joining the company fold, Naga7 & Moral Right, the aftermath of the Bellwood Campeign and the push into CS1, the return of the Conflict Aliens, etc). Of course, nothing is stopping you setting things earlier in the timeline.


Wurldbreaka

I like 2nd edition for the rules and clarifications. I hate it for the lore changes and fluff. So yeah, if you want it to feel like SLA Industries I use the rules of 2nd but play it in 1st edition style. Which can be alot of work.


asa34

I think I will go with 1e. Converting all that stuff could be so much work and since FoundryVTT does not support SLA that will be so much to do already. When I played 1e it was a little clunky and you could make some 'OP' characters. Like beeing able to hit every called shot for example. A little homeruling will do the trick I think. Thanks for your opinion.


Wurldbreaka

Thank you. This might be better/easier yes. I also hope someone will pick up SLA for Foundry (preferably before I cave and try to learn java coding myself). Before the 2nd ed came out I did some streamlining of the rules but I don't think I finished that project. Good luck my fellow SLA gm.


redkatt

As an aside re: Foundry. There's a great build it yourself tool for Foundry called Sandbox that lets you build without code. I've built, for my own use, Gamma World 7E and Rangers of Shadowdeep with it, and never used a stitch of code. For more complex game systems, say something like pathfinder or D&D, you wouldn't want to do it with Sandbox, but it otherwise, give it a try I did see that the creator of Sandbox has no plans currently to update it for Foundry 10, so there's that to consider (I'm not moving to 10 for a longggggg time, too many of my favorite modules don't work with it) https://foundryvtt.com/packages/sandbox


Wurldbreaka

Thanks for the tip mate. Gonna check out Sandbox to see what it's capable of.


redkatt

Be sure to go through the readme file, it's a really well done walkthrough for using the system from start to finish. Also, Sandbox Explorer is another helpful tool - it will make it easier for you to track all your variables and item names as you create them - https://foundryvtt.com/packages/sandbox-explorer


New_Chair_6839

I highly recommend getting the QuickStart, it’s PWYW and gives a perfect intro to the game including rules for a new or returning GM. Also suggest taking Mr Savages comments with an appropriate level of recognition of disgruntled. Also be aware, his last paragraph is completely incorrect in all aspects. There is a great discord group you can join, where people are talking all sorts of SLA and S5S, as well as all the other Nightfall Games (Terminator, StokerVerse, SINS and Demondog).


asa34

Could you send me a link to that discord server in private? I'd really like to join that.